mac to pc metadata encoding problem (8 posts)

metaproblemos Member

Hello,

Im a photographer and I add metadata to my pics before I upload them on a WINDOWS server. From there they get picked up and posted with the metadata showing on web. If i upload them manually in browser then everything is cool but when I use FTP client to upload them accented characters get messed up. I have tried changing things in preferences menu but nothing the problem remains.
Any advice would be great, thanks

Scott McGuire Administrator

Fetch does not make any changes to the contents of files when it uploads or downloads them; so the metadata inside photos would be unchanged when you use Fetch to upload them.

You can verify this by uploading a photo with Fetch, and then downloading the photo with Fetch again, and viewing the metadata of the downloaded photo. It should be identical to the original photo.

There are different systems for displaying accented characters (called encodings) and my guess is your Mac uses one and the software that displays the photos from the server uses another, and that perhaps the real cause of this discrepancy is that when you upload the photos with the web browser, it is modifying the character encoding of the metadata, but Fetch is not - and you need to have the character encoding modified in order for the accented characters to display properly.

However, that's just a guess, and without knowing more about the specific software you're using, it's hard to say for sure. If you could tell us more about what you're doing, we can try to figure out exactly what's going on.

Which program on your Mac are you using to add metadata to your pictures? When you say "upload them manually in the browser," are you using an upload link provided by the same website that stores and displays the photos? And is this one of the common photo sharing services, e.g. Flikr, Smugmug, Picasa, etc.?

metaproblemos Member

hmm..
is there any way to turn on character modifying in fetch?
Your suggestion makes sense.
Im a pressphotographer and im uploading pictures to a imagebank (www.pressifoto.ee / its not a common server, im using a moderator version of the same site ) from where editors can view and download them. Im using photomechanic on mac and fotostation pro on pc. When I convert, rename and add metadata in MAC and upload from my PC then everything is great. The problem occurs only when doing all the actions with ftp client on MAC. I have already tried several ftp clients and changing iptc encoding(to UTF-8, Latin 1 whatever) in photomechanic.

Scott McGuire Administrator

Hi,

No, I'm sorry, but there is no way to tell Fetch to change the character encoding of files as they are uploaded. (Fetch does have a character encoding setting, but that only affects the display of filenames in Fetch windows, it does not affect the contents of files.)

I admit I'm not familiar with PhotoMechanic on the Mac or that server software. However, I 'd think that changing the IPTC encoding in PhotoMechanic should fix the problem as I understand it; it may be a matter of finding the correct encoding.

If it doesn't require a username and password to view, could you send us a link to one of the photo pages that has the problem? We might have a suggestion.

Are you using an FTP program on the PC to upload the files, or something else?

metaproblemos Member

There are only few possibilities what kind of encoding the server uses. I tried to find out fotostation pro-s default encoding, but didnt google it out. Ive tried the most common ones.
The page does require a password and user.
Im using total commander on pc.
thnx,